Whit Fraser Releases Memoir on CBC Career and Rideau Hall

Ottawa, April 18, 2026 – Whit Fraser, husband of Governor General Mary Simon, released his memoir Monday, recounting a career that began with an unlikely job offer from the CBC nearly 60 years ago and led to life at Rideau Hall.

Fraser, a former journalist with no prior reporting experience, accepted a position in Iqaluit – then known as Frobisher Bay – in April 1967 after reading the news one night. The book, titled "From Ragged Ass Road to Rideau Hall," details how that decision shaped his path, from northern assignments to anchoring CBC Newsworld and working in the parliamentary bureau for eight years. "As the great baseball player Yogi Berra said, 'When you come to a fork in the road, take it,'" Fraser said in an interview. "But the fact that somebody heard me read the news the one night that I did a good job of reading it and offered me the job to go North, that was it. That's good luck, it's good fortune, and some people may say it's destiny."

The memoir highlights Fraser's major stories, including a 1982 trip to Nunavik where he witnessed thousands of animals killed after being swept over a waterfall, and his coverage of the 1985 Arrow Air Flight 1285R crash near Gander,...